After two mystery buyers inexplicably dropped their bids within the past month, the iconic David and Gladys Wright home in Phoenix officially closed escrow today for about $2.38 million, Robert Joffe, the pro bono listing agent, told me.

The home was designed by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright for his son, David, and his wife, Gladys.

This buyer’s identity is — you guessed it — also anonymous, and they intend to keep it that way by holding the property title in an entity specifically set up to be untraceable.

Joffe said he isn’t exactly sure why this buyer or the two prior ones worked so hard to dodge public recognition.

But he is nonetheless adamant that the new owner’s sole objective is long-term preservation, thus staving off any lingering threats of demolition, which was the catalyst of the controversy six months ago that has since become a full-blown reality soap opera with a worldwide audience.

“They’re not looking for the notoriety. They’re not looking for the press. To me, they’re buying it for the right reasons,” said Joffe, who owns the Joffe Group and is an agent with Russ Lyon Sotheby’s International Realty in Phoenix.

For the city of Phoenix, the transaction is a huge sigh of relief.

Up until today, Phoenix City Council’s upcoming decision to designate the Wright home as a historic landmark was a double-edged sword: Failing to do so would black-mark Phoenix as a place that cares little about historic preservation, but doing so without the previous owner’s permission was likely to land the city in a legal battle over private-property rights.

The likelihood of such a legal battle was also growing almost daily by the time the third buyer stepped in, Joffe said.

After the second mystery buyer pulled out early this month, the seller, local developer 8081 Meridian LLC, was exasperated and ready to take the property off the market in preparation to sue the city, Joffe said. So when the third buyer showed up, patience was already wearing thin and the deal had to be done quickly.

“If this buyer wasn’t here, (Meridian) and the Mayor’s office were going to collide — it was going to get real ugly,” Joffe said.

That malaise has been eased with the new mystery buyer, who is willing to work with both the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy and the city to solidify the property’s preservation.

“From everything that I know of this particular buyer, they (the city and the new owner) are going to make music together,” Joffe said.

Thus, council’s long-awaited vote on the landmark designation, which has been twice delayed and is now tentatively scheduled for Jan. 16, is now suddenly less urgent — albeit not off the table.

Within the next month or so, the city plans to meet with the owner’s representatives to hash out a long-term preservation plan, Councilmembers Sal DiCiccio and Thelda Williams told me.

Details are unknown until that city-owner meeting, but the landmark designation is one of several things being considered for that long-term plan, said DiCiccio, who represents the district in which the Wright home is located near Camelback Road and 54th Street.

The city also hopes the new owner will apply for the Wright home to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

“I think it’s critical the city of Phoenix is seen as a partner and not someone who’s going to be dictating terms to the new owner,” he said. “We’re trying to bring a level of stability into this that works cooperatively with the new owner and figures out what their long-term goals are and see how we can mesh the government with that.”

Williams, who is teaming up with DiCiccio on these efforts, said the controversy, if anything, has caused Phoenix and Arizona residents to re-evaluate how historic preservation should be prioritized.

“Before, everyone went into a panic mode and the reactions turned out not to be so positive, and were certainly detrimental,” Williams said. “I think now we’re taking a much more reasonable approach.”